The Salzburg Seminar announces American Studies Center Session 27 entitled
RACE, ETHNICITY, RELIGION AND AMERICAN IDENTITY
to take place at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria from March 10-17, 2001. Participants will be sociologists, journalists, and university teachers of American Studies, including historians and literary scholars, who are interested in the ethnic, racial and religious developments that have influenced contemporary American society. The application deadline is February 11 or until the session is full. Anyone interested in attending is encouraged to apply early. Scholarship aid available for qualified individuals; no one should hesitate to apply for lack of funding. For further information please email admissions@salzburgseminar.org or Marty Gecek at mgecek@salzburgseminar.org

Also see the Salzburg Seminar website at http://www.salzburgseminar.org and click on American Studies Center.

There follows a description of the program and the faculty members who will be leading it.

AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER SALZBURG SEMINAR
Schloss Leopoldskron, Salzburg, Austria
American Studies Center Session 27

ETHNICITY, RACE, RELIGION AND AMERICAN IDENTITY

March 10-17, 2001

The ethnic, racial, and religious seeds of America's identity are sown in its present and its past. If the demographics of America's population continue their current pattern, people of color will constitute the majority of US citizens before the middle of this century, and Protestantism will become one of the nation's minority religions. This American Studies Center session will explore what these changes will mean for the future of American identity, values, governmental policies, and popular assumptions. Participants will seek to understand America's evolving multicultural society and the significant role that religion has played in shaping American social development. Bringing together sociologists, journalists, and university teachers of American Studies, including historians and literary scholars, this session will examine the historical context of the ethnic, racial, and religious developments that have influenced contemporary American society. The session will consider the history and significance of racial and ethnic identity and the power and pervasiveness of religious expression in America. It will also focus on the ways in which religious conviction affects personal, cultural, and political life. Discussion will focus on contemporary racial issues in American society, including the role of slavery in the formation of American culture, and current controversies over the presentation of uncomfortable and unflattering aspects of the national experience.

Emphasis will also be placed on the literary perspective through an examination of twentieth century multicultural literature. The last few decades have seen important changes of approach in American literary and cultural studies which have profoundly affected the ways we understand the constitution of American identity and its representations in American writing. Race, ethnicity, class and gender have come to be seen as crucial factors in the make-up of cultural and personal identity; religion has
received more peripheral attention. Participants will examine the turn towards multiculturalization in American literary studies by exploring the interplay of race, ethnicity and religion in the constitution of cultural and personal identity in contemporary American multicultural literature. The discussions will focus on authors such as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Bharati Mukherjee, Louise Erdrich and Pearl Abraham. The electronic component of the program will involve sessions in the Seminar's computer laboratory, where participants will practice using the latest technology to support American Studies teaching and research.

Faculty
Jim Horton (Chair), Benjamin Banneker Professor, Department of American Studies, George Washington University, Washington, DC; Director, African American Communities Project, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC Hans Bak, Professor of American Literature and American Studies; Director, American Studies Program, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands Edward T. Linenthal, Edward M. Penson Professor of Religion and American Culture, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

Application deadline: February 10, 2001, or until the session is filled.

Martha Gecek
Administrative Director, American Studies Center
Salzburg Seminar, Schloss Leopoldskron
Box 129
A-5010 Salzburg, Austria
Tel. ++43 662 839830
Fax: ++43 662 839837
email: mgecek@salzburgseminar.org
WWW: http://www.salzburgseminar.org